While Other Kids Were Learning Their “Please” And “Thank Yous”

He asked me, not quite grasping my Spanish, “Cómo así?” (What do you mean?)

“Qué si me puedes dar un refill?” (I mean can you give me a refill?)

“Of what?”

I knew the waiter did not understand me because of the nature of my request and not because he was Mexican and I was Colombian.

I feigned surprise myself and told him, “What else? Of the meat.”

He laughed, tickled by my request.

My request was that he could give me a refill on the 12 oz rib eye I had just finished.

The rib eye was just scrumptious. It truly was; truly scrumptious.

I wanted more, but I didn’t want to pay for it. So I asked for a refill.

I get it. There is no such thing as a free lunch, but my mom, a seasoned saleswoman, taught me early on, “Carlos Eduardo, tocar la puerta no es entrar.” (Knocking on the door is not entering).

This was not meant to be a prank. I love those.

I’ll give you an example of a prank I loved: when my wife was pregnant, people would come to us and say, “Congratulations!”

“Thank you. On what?”

“On the pregnancy.”

I would turn to my wife, alarmed, and shout as loud as the setting allowed, “What??? You are pregnant?”

People would never know what to do until Justine rolled her eyes.

My wife would tell me, “That’s a terrible joke,” and I would respond, “That’s a terrible comment. In this body-positive climate, who the hell assumes someone is pregnant?”

When my wife and I reminisce about our daughters’ pregnancies, she tells me wistfully that she misses the intimacy and privacy of having her unborn babies inside her belly.

When I think of her pregnancies… I miss that joke.

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